Wisconsin Republicans want prisoners to use stimulus checks to pay restitution
Two RepublicanWisconsin lawmakers want to require prisoners to use Covid-19 stimulus payments to fund restitution for their crimes, rather than be given outright access to such funds.
The legislators have presented a bill to establish the requirement, the Washington Post reported, but it is not clear that it will pass.
“President Biden’s irresponsible stimulus package sends stimulus checks to imprisoned murderers, rapists and child molesters,” a co-sponsor, the state senator Julian Bradley, told the paper. “[We] are taking action to ensure the
victims of these heinous crimes are paid restitution before criminals sitting in prison can profit.”
Debate continues about whether incarcerated people should receive economic relief payments, which they did under the Trump administration as well as under the $1.9tn relief package that was signed into law by Joe Biden last week. Republicans did not make it a key campaign issue while Donald Trump was in power.
Last year, under Trump, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act. The legislation did not clearly include or exclude from payment groups including those in prison and undocumented migrants.
But the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stated that incarcerated persons could receive $1,200 checks like the majority of Americans and, the Post said, distributed approximately $100m to such people via almost 85,000 payments.
The IRS changed its directive in May 2020, telling prisons and jails to seize future payments. Incarcerated persons and family members were instructed to give back the money.
Many affected by the reversal took part in a class-action lawsuit in California. A federal judge sided with them twice, ruling that correctional facilities had to provide inmates time and assistance to obtain payments.
Following the last ruling in the case, in October, attorney Kelly Dermody said she hoped it would be “the last of it” and told the Post the Trump administration had “already wasted a lot of taxpayer money chasing after checks that were previously properly issued, misleading correctional authorities about eligibility, and filing brief after brief in court trying to stop our fellow Americans from getting stimulus money”.
While Congress worked on the third stimulus bill, debate ramped up once more. The Republican senator Bill Cassidy, from Louisiana, introduced one of two amendments that would have stopped prisoners receiving $1,400 stimulus payments. The Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton wrote on Twitter: “Dylann Roof murdered nine people. He’s on federal death row. He’ll be getting a $1,400 stimulus check as part of the Democrats’ ‘Covid relief’ bill.”
The American Rescue Plan contained payments to those in prison. However, another Post report revealed that inmates might not get payments anyway, because prepaid debit cards used to disseminate the money cannot be used in prison – and are often confiscated by authorities.